For I Lioness and You, Wolf
by Fayiyong
Summary: Warm—his hand is warm. Like the summers she adored in Rock. [ONESHOT. Light Cersei/Ned. AU. Set after a day she wed Robert. Both are wed. Hope you enjoy!]
**A Song of Ice and Fire belongs to George R. R. Martin**

 **This ASOIAF fan fiction is created by** **Fayiyong**

 **Is not to be published anywhere without my consent**

 **NED/CERSEI. I find them lovely and you have been warned.**

 **Do enjoy yourselves, milords, miladies.**

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She was overly too tired of him. _Ned Stark_ , she breathed inside her throat, _why is he so full of ridiculous things like honour?_ They were just nine and ten and yet he behaved as if he was already as old as her father, Lord Tywin Lannister the Great Lion of the Rock.

Cersei despised Eddard Stark with all her might.

As her green eyes crept on him, sending him this odd shiver and raising the hair behind his neck, she wondered to herself. Why would this wolf take a fish as his mate? They did not belong. He should at least get someone prettier, someone more _capable_ , someone far more suited, than this Tully maiden.

 _Is she? A maiden?_ Cersei wondered, feeling quite a strong urge to whimper a laugh.

She ran her stare all over him again—totally forgetting that drunkard of a husband she got near him—and muttered again to herself. This Stark was a total opposite of Robert; he was gentle, he was all ears when someone spoke to him, and he kissed her hand when he greeted her. If Robert was the sun, he was the moon. He was a wolf after all—they all foolishly howled as the moon rose. The lioness rolled her eyes.

"You can't Robert," Cersei then heard Lord Stark said to her Baratheon husband, "Winter is Coming." Surely a dull saying, she knew. They always said that, those wolves, and if that was meant as threat, they failed to scare her.

She was the lioness of Casterly Rock. Why would she fear lesser beasts? They bowed to her.

And suddenly, she hissed a pitiful laughter. Come to think of it, she too had a rather odd marriage, for a lioness had been shipped off to marry a stag though she was previously promised to be the dragon's mate.

 _This is far too humiliating_ , she insulted herself. _A lioness submits to a stag. Father was surely blinded by power for he consciously sent me to marry a lesser beast—and a great lizard, in Rhaegar's case_. Had it been Jaime, they wouldn't need to settle poorly like this. A lion is meant to mate a lioness. Cersei sighed.

A shadow covered her face, and she raised her sharp chin to see whose it was.

The wolf appeared in front of her rather groggily. "Milady, Robert wants me to escort you back to your chambers."

She married that drunkard a night before and she could already tell that this escort thing was a lie. Cersei offered him a smirk. "That is nice of you, Lord Stark, but I happen to know where my chambers are and I am quite sure I am not blind, nor I am cripple." She was a lioness. She was the little queen of the westerlands.

Eddard Stark shook his head. "I'm afraid I need to accompany you, my queen." She wanted to ask why and wondered if he would just answer her by saying his house's motto, but she remained quiet instead. "This way, Milady," he said as he got her delicate fingers on his larger, rougher ones.

Never she had imagined she'd be holding hands with a wolf before.

They walked in silence until finally Eddard asked with an unsure tone in his raspy voice, "Did he treat you well?"

She didn't bother to look at him. "You are a bad friend of his if you ever need to ask that."

He stopped talking. He knew the answer, he just wanted to verify it. She hated that.

"He was in me last night," she began, now looking at him. Her jade diamonds pierced his eyes. "He was in me, drunk and reek, and he called your sister's name." It was painful—she didn't find affection in Robert, but being forgotten and rejected like that was hell.

He, however, nodded. "I must apologise for his bad behaviour."

"You better apologise for your sister." He looked at her with questioning eyes. "I hate her with all my might." She hated everyone but Jaime and Aunt Genna, apparently.

He didn't give a word back.

Her chambers were there. She spun around to face him before her ebony door. Now as they came face to face, she realised that this Stark was quite tall—taller than Jaime, dirtier than Jaime, manlier than Jaime. She shot him with her eyes and words. "Your sister destroyed my marriage in a single night, congratulations, Lord Stark. May winter never come to you any longer." With that, she went to open her door—

—before his hand caught hers.

Cersei stared at Eddard, surprised at his sudden rather inappropriate action.

Pair of grey eyes glared at her. Cold, she felt. Cold, and fearsome, and untrue. As if she was looking into the depth of mist. An endless route—an endless and dark passage. Cersei nearly gulped. This man now grabbed her hand in a somehow tight manner, though she did not feel hurt at all. He still knew his place.

 _Warm—his hand is warm_. Like the summers she adored in Rock.

"Do not say anymore about my sister," he warned her. His grey orbs shone. "Do not speak ill of the dead."

"Or what? They will come and haunt me?" She was Cersei, so she laughed. She saw his jaw tightened. "Behave, Lord Stark. For I am queen and you my vassal. What I spat about your sister is true. Blame Robert if you find it offensive. Blame him and his gutter mouth."

He studied her face. "You hate him."

"I don't think I could ever be capable of despising someone this hard."

He sighed. "I understand." He let go of her hand. It felt like the cold touched her hand again. "Again, I apologise. It was quite rude of me to touch you like that. Forgive me, Milady."

She showed him her smirk. "'Your Grace'."

His lips turned upwards a little. "Your Grace," he corrected.

She oddly didn't want this to end just yet. "How is your fair trout lady, Lord Stark?"

He was surprised to hear that. "Why, she is well, Your Grace."

"Is she content?"

"As far as I know, yes, she is good with me."

"I meant," she stressed, fully smirking now, "is she content to being your wife?" From what she heard, he married her before the war.

His face changed. "She is." Cersei wanted to see the coldness of his grey eyes again.

"So I've heard." He was clearly handsome in his own ways, Cersei needed to admit, for she could see why the Tullys were persistent to marry one of their silly girls to this man. "Don't you feel sad, Lord Stark, for wedding a fish?"

"After insulting my dead sister, now you are trying to insult my lady wife," he coldly stated.

She saw the coldness again. "I am merely asking." She began to love that.

"Then allow me to ask similar question, Milady—how does it feel to wed a stag?" As she narrowed her pretty brows, he added, "You wed your own supper."

She laughed. Not a fake one, nor a sly one. She really laughed. _What poor humour_ , she mused, _this ice man is truly beyond him_.

Seeing her laugh, he smirked.

"Oh, it feels like hells here," she answered after she gathered herself.

"I am very much sorry, Your Grace."

She stared at him. Cersei Lannister locked her green eyes to Eddard Stark's grey ones. "You could have been my lord husband," bluntly, she blurted out. His eyes rounded. "Had my father been less obvious or ambitious, I'd have settled with you."

He was confused and shocked. "Your lord father knows best."

"He knows," she agreed, "for himself."

He avoided her eyes.

"You wed a Tully while you are a wolf. You don't belong. She is to the river and you snow. Could have been better with me, fellow land beast. Lions perhaps do quite well in snow."

"She is faithful."

She rolled her eyes. "To whom? Her Littlefinger?" she mocked.

"Wolves don't do well in summer."

"Then learn." She realised now that this man tried to honour his lady wife by politely sending her, a Lannister, away. It jabbed her throat like a glowing blade. She felt like her Baratheon husband's warhammer hit her. "For stags fight in an open field during summer as well." With that, she opened her door and closed it.

She heard his fading footsteps.

 _I am a lioness—I settle for lion, Jaime, and not for lesser beasts._

She breathed out and closed her eyes.

Little that she knew he'd wished for the same thing.

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 **I have always in love with book Cersei and show Cersei. She is an awesome villain, unique character, and undeniably a feminist. I also love Lena Headey and Sean Bean—they are super chill. The idea of Ned x Cersei has always bothered me. I imagined how they'd interact after her wedding. I also made up their age—nineteen. Hope this is quite enjoyable for you.**


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